Kidnappers say U.S. hostage in Pakistan still alive

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – John Solecki, an American kidnapped in Pakistan while working for a U.N. refugee agency, was still alive, a spokesman for the separatist group holding him said on Monday after media reports that he had been killed.

Pakistani television channels had run a headline saying the Press Club in the southwestern city of Quetta had received an anonymous telephone call saying Solecki had been killed and his body would be left in a couple of hours.

A spokesman for the previously unheard of Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) later telephoned a Pakistani news agency office in Quetta to deny any call had been made from the group, and to confirm that Solecki was alive.

"He is alive," a spokesman, Shahak Baluch, said in a call to Online news agency. "We have not made any call."

"He is sick and suffering from heart and kidney problems. We are giving him medical treatment," the spokesman said.

Solecki had complained of failing health in a videotape released earlier by his captors.

Solecki, head of the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees in Baluchistan province, was abducted on February 2 by gunmen who ambushed his car and shot dead his driver in the provincial capital, Quetta.

The BLUF has threatened to kill Solecki unless the United Nations acts on its demands.

The group wants the United Nations to secure the release of 141 women it says have been detained in Pakistan, provide information about more than 6,000 missing persons, and resolve the issue of Baluch independence under the Geneva Convention.

Baluchistan, the largest but poorest of Pakistan's four provinces, lies on the border with Afghanistan. Separatist militants have fought a low-scale insurgency there for decades.

The spokesman said the separatist group was considering a U.N. request to open communications through an intermediary.

The UNHCR issued an audiotape on Saturday of an appeal by Solecki's 83-year-old mother for her son's release.

"We want to be with John again," Rose Solecki said. "We cannot bear the shock of losing John."